Is the U.S. Coast Guard operating secret floating prisons?

During the War on Terror, the U.S. was often criticized for its operation of extraterritorial detention facilities such as the one at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as “black” sites around the world.

Although the Coast Guard usually isn’t associated with covert detention programs, USA Today reports that Coast Guard cutters have begun to hold suspected drug smugglers encountered in the Pacific for weeks or even months at a time.

The legal argument offered by the Coast Guard is that the men are not under arrest, and are simply being held due to the inevitable logistics-related delays involved in getting them to shore to face prosecution.